In the past, when I needed an MRI, I almost always scheduled them in the evening because that way they did not interfere with work. It just so happened that late last week my doctor thought it would be wise to get me in to the giant magnetic tube as soon as possible and today at noon was arranged.
I have been in an MRI before, so I know the routine. You check in, you get escorted back and change into a gown and some uncomfortable hospital pajama panties and you sit in a waiting room and read bad magazines until you are escorted back to the big giant machines room. Since I have usually been in an MRI section when it is not busy, the waiting rooms have almost always been empty. I believe last summer I ended up hanging with a woman who had breast cancer, she and me alone in the waiting room, laughing and having a good time.
Today, the waiting room had a lot of people, older people, unhappy people. Not the jovial and beautiful woman with battle in her eyes, more beleaguered people with defeat and a look at lost hope. Oh well, I thought, I need to find People Magazine and focus. I sat down in what looked to be the angry women’s section and immediately I thought I had made a terrible mistake.
There was a know it all woman leaning against a wall, drinking her Barium cocktail and talking loudly enough that I doubt anyone in the area could have missed a word, and every word was filled with how sad her life had become. He worthless son lived with her, but he was no help at all. He slept till two in the afternoon and the only chore he managed around the house was taking the garbage out once a week. She still had to clean and manage to create meals. All this while undergoing chemo, which made the meals less and less enticing, although she added, since she began smoking marijuana, she is getting her hunger back.
One of the other women questioned her about the legality of marijuana and it seemed that her good for nothing son was good for something, scoring good quality smoke. I was busy reading about Brad and Angie and how they may finally get married when the woman drinking Barium declared to everyone within earshot how she was indeed dying, sooner than later, “pancreatic cancer will do that to you, but then, we are all dying, all of us here anyway.” She said that, including everyone in the waiting room. That got me to look up and she and I made eye contact.
“What’re you here for?” She asked me.
“Bone fragments in my knee, it hurts when I ride,” I lied to her.
“Well, maybe you aren’t dying.”
“Probably not. My doctor is convinced I am invincible.”
“Is that right?” She said with that smokers gruff scowl in her voice.
“Guess so,” I said, smugly.
The nice woman across from me gave me a warm smile. She was there accompanying her mother, who was there checking her life timeline. Mom was dying, as was Barium cocktail woman, as was the fat guy sitting behind me, I could see it in his eyes. I have seen eyes like his before. He had the bad news, not he just wanted to know the timing.
I liked that Barium momma was under the impression that my nimble knees were the source of all my discomfort. I have been riding my indoor cycle a lot more than I should, and my knees and grinding in that way that long road cycling brings about, but I was not there to have a specialist take interior pictures of my knees. I wish I was. No, I was there for a view of my tiny, barely functional brain. Again.
The MRI is a giant tube that makes a lot of noise, especially when you slide into it. When you are having your brain looked at, they put this cage like device over your face, almost touching your nose, and these bean bag pillows all around your head so you can’t move at all. The bed you lie on slides into the MRI machine and loud pounding noises are emitted as the electro-magnets somehow magically make images of your body appear on a computer in another room. It is all magic. In the past I have asked and received copies of the MRI report, so I have a few digital images of my brain, so every now and then when I am accused of being brainless, I can actually prove people wrong.
This time I did not ask for a copy of the images.
I slept during the first half of the procedure. Although it is loud and pounding and sometimes the technician wakes the patient to ask if everything is all right, I have been “tubed” enough times at this point that I am bored by the routine. The major difference this time, well, there were two, the first is that about halfway thru, I was pulled out, something was added to an IV that had been started in my arm and I was replaced back into the machine, so some magic MRI fluid could flow through my brain while the machine did is thump thump thumping. I tried to nap again.
The other interesting change this time was watching the technician react to the image that came over his computer screen. This is never a good thing to witness for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the technician is not a doctor and has no ability to actually read what he is seeing. I had this tiny mirror right above my face, that allowed me a view of the technician sitting at his computer console. I watched as he was looking at my brain and at some dramatic point, he called over another technician and started pointing at the screen, at my brain, and the other technician, adding to my neurosis, leaned in closer to the screen, as if to say, “what the hell is that?” At that point I just closed my eyes and thought about what it would be like to drink one of those barium cocktails.
There are no immediate answers from an MRI, you leave the big technology filled room, go back to a locker, get your clothes, get dressed and leave. In a couple of days I will meet with someone in a white coat who will probably tell me my knees look fine.
That’s how these things usually go.
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